Learning and Working Our Way to Success

Practice is making perfect as Home Performance with Energy Star branches out into new territory.

Four years after the launch of Home Performance with Energy Star—a program aimed at bringing home performance to existing homes—I am excited first and foremost by its success in the marketplace. In New York, where the program first took root, over 5,800 homeowners have invested more than $40 million of their own money in home performance improvements— improvements that were completed by qualified contractors using advanced diagnostics to make these homes more energy efficient, safer, and more comfortable (see “A New York Energy $mart Program,” p. 24). In Wisconsin, the number of completed home performance jobs has increased tenfold in the three years of the program’s existence there (see “Wisconsin’s Home Performance with Energy Star,” p. 25).While homeowners are suddenly finding themselves comfortable in their own homes, contractors are also benefiting from the program. Contractors who incorporate this comprehensive, whole-house approach into their businesses are finding they can charge a fair price, make a decent living, and feel good about the difference they’re making to their customers. Because home performance contracting makes sense for contractors and ...